Always Mind Your Mind.

Always mind your mind.

The separation between the two, like the separation between many other things, is but an illusion.

The only thing I would want to add is that even as we know anger as a negative and generally harmful emotion, you still must recognize and accept that you are experiencing it. Trying to deny that reality, whether to others or to yourself, can be very harmful as well. As with my thoughts on sorrow and loss, once you accept the emotions you are feeling, you can then observe what triggered them and let them pass by. What has made you angry? Is it something external, or did that simply set off something pent up within? See the truth of your feelings and your ability to control and check your ego will improve drastically.

Controlling Anger

Controlling anger is no different than control of any other harmful emotion.  First and foremost, our anger subsides naturally as we progress spiritually. It becomes very difficult to react with anger when we live our lives with compassion and kindness. 

Second, what is anger and where does it come from? Anger is a natural defensive response when we feel threatened or frustrated and our ego senses danger. When we become angry several physical things happen to us. We release adrenalin.  Our breathing and heart rate increases so our muscles are prepared for conflict.  We sometimes get the urge to void our bowels or bladder to better prepare for internal injury. 

You see, anger is a very primitive emotion it’s purpose is not to help you win an argument with your Mom but to fight a predator.  So, for this reason, anger is often a very poor response in a non lethal setting.  Anger shuts down the reasoning part of our minds and sends us into an action mode.  I guess the body figures that the time for talk and reason has passed.

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The journey of a thousand miles, single step, you all should know that one by now.

Daoism as Religion

I am not a religious person. I do not consider myself spiritual. To be honest, I’m not sure I consider myself to be particularly faithful (in the religious/spiritual sense, I’m not a cheater!). Is this against Daoism?

I don’t believe so. True Daoism isn’t really a religion, in any sense of the word. There are no deities, no rituals, not even really a code of conduct. It isn’t the same as Zen or Shinto or any of the other East Asian spiritual traditions that it is so commonly associated with in the modern world. Daoism is, quite simply, a guide on how to live one’s life without the stress and worry that came with the alternatives of Laozi’s age, namely Confucianism and Buddhism. Like many famous old texts, there is even debate on whether the old man wrote it himself, or if he existed at all (but that’s a story for another time, I think). So how did Daoism get to be associated with religion at all?

Well, here’s where things get complicated, and the issue of labeling what is and what isn’t Daoism can be problematic. Somewhere deep in China’s long and storied history, the religions of the land needed to be categorized, and Daoism, being an odd sort of duck, was lumped together with many of the shamanistic folk practices of the common people. From here we see the rise of institutionalized Daoism, with churches and rituals and all the trappings of what we would call a spiritual tradition.

But if you look at the core of the book, of the themes it encourages, this is against the very nature of the Path. It is unnecessary for the people of the world to organize groups or schools around the concepts of individual exploration, and perhaps even detrimental to the act of discovering the Path for oneself. The story goes that Laozi was hesitant to even write the book, as it creates a structure in and of itself. The conundrum is understandable, especially looking back at what’s happened over the last couple thousand years.

I believe that true Daosim, in order to focus on the core idea of letting all discover and walk their own way along the Path, should avoid this sort of idolatry. This includes venerating the old man and the book, to avoid being a Lao-ist, as it were. It’s great to have the teachings there, don’t get me wrong, but as I mentioned earlier, the authorship is under a healthy discussion as it should be, and we should look at the teachings as less a strict code, and more like guidelines, really. If there’s any sort of faith to Daoism, it would be the faith that the Path is leading us all somewhere better than where we currently are, or that everyone will eventually find their way to it and then things will be good. But that faith isn’t necessary to living your own life in accordance with your own personal Dao.

Just as a disclaimer, in no way am I saying that religion shouldn’t exist, or that the religious schools of Daoism are bad or harmful. Things turned out the way they did for a reason, this is part of the Path. Obviously, religion does a great deal of both help and harm to peoples’ lives, and this is the way I believe it is supposed to be. What I’m saying is that Daoism exists separate from wherever people choose to place their faith, and can complement or contrast with any personal spiritual belief you may have.

Sometimes you find your Path early in life, and sometimes it finds you.